First a little information for context:

My wife and I bought a house in late spring and I’ve been avidly working on improving the 1/3 acre lawn since then. We acquired the house from an older lady who was unable to maintain the yard in the final years of her living there. When we bought it, there was years of grass clippings, leaves, and other organic matter trapped under the top layer of grass and other weeds. With this there was also a lot of bare spots. Much to my disdain before I learned what a thatching machine is, I spent hours and hours trying to rake all the dead stuff up to give the soil some oxygen and sunlight before seeding (95% elite turf type fescue/5% rye grass) and beginning my local nursery’s “idiot proof” grass program. The nursery is very reputable and the program seems pretty legit but only if your yard isn’t as backslid as mine. Ultimately I got a late start on the program and laying down seed. For those reasons I did not expect much in the way of positive results this season. But I am trying to get a bit ahead of the game for next year. The program includes Loveland Prevent: A crabgrass preventer (Mid-March to Mid-April). Loveland Weed and Feed(April through Early June). Another round of Prevent (Late May through Early June). Loveland Renovator: helps the yard bounce back from summer stress and includes fertilizer for fall seeding (September through October). And they have me finishing out the season with Loveland Snowman which strengthens roots and boost disease resistance. Caveat to all this: because I got a late start on my yard they had me sub out one bag of prevent for an extra bag of renovator. The program has seemed to help my backyard quite a bit but I still have a lot of clover and other various weeds. My front yard has seen little to no improvement aside from the bare spots being filled in with crabgrass and a myriad of other weeds. So with all this comes the question. 

Im wanting to over-seed this fall when the temperature cools down. But I’m wanting to lay down some Speedzone to kill all the crabgrass and other weeds in hopes I can mitigate some of its return next year before renting a thatching machine to get up what I couldn’t with a rake and aerating. Is now the optimal time to do this? If not now, when? Should I just cut my losses and start early next spring? I’m trying to time it so the Speedzone doesn’t inhibit or harm the fall over seeding. Any advice, critiques, criticisms or questions for better context for my Fall plans would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Help! Long post so please bear with me! Platte City, Missouri (Just outside of KC)